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New census figures show the number of Mexican immigrants living in the United States dropped more last year than at any point in the past decade, a plunge that came as the Trump administration took power and made the deportation of unauthorized immigrants a top priority.

The number of US residents 鈥� legal and undocumented 鈥� born in Mexico has dropped slowly since a peak of 11.7 million before the Great Recession, to 11.3 million in 2017, but the decline of 300,000 between 2016 and 2017 is rare.

The sudden plunge seems to be an acceleration of a long-term trend of native Mexicans returning to their homeland. The results have been tough for Mexico: Among its challenges are schools jammed with English-speaking, often American-born children brought by parents who either were deported, feared deportation, or saw more opportunity and less hostility south of the border.

鈥淚t could be new opportunity or that the US has made them feel less welcome. I suspect it鈥檚 both,鈥� said Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.

The last time there was a drop of this magnitude in the Mexican-born US population was between 2007 and 2008, when the Great Recession started and the federal government began cracking down on illegal immigration using the Secure聽Communities program. That year, the number of Mexican immigrants living in the US dropped by about 326,000.

Last year, border states and those dependent on immigrant farm labor took the biggest hits in the loss of Mexicans: California lost more than 137,000 Mexican immigrants, and Texas lost more than 55,000. Other states losing more than 10,000 Mexican immigrants were Florida, Georgia, New York, and Washington State.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center of Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of immigration, said it鈥檚 hard to tell what caused the decline. 鈥淚f it is due to increased enforcement deterring some people from聽coming here illegally, that could be beneficial. If it prevents them from undertaking a dangerous journey that could cost them their life savings and result in their being harmed or even killed, that is a good thing.鈥�

Many farmworkers in upstate New York, especially single men, left after the 2016 presidential election raised tension, recalled Luis Jimenez, a dairy farmworker from Mexico who volunteers with the 鈥淎lianza Agricola鈥� (Spanish for the Agricultural Alliance), a group of farmworkers advocating for more immigrant rights in New York.

鈥淪ome people went back rather than wait to be arrested and deported,鈥� Mr. Jimenez said. 鈥淭hose of us with wives and children mostly decided to stay. It鈥檚 a hard choice. It鈥檚 dangerous either way. If you go back there鈥檚 crime and kidnappings and the schools are not as good, so for now we鈥檙e staying for our children鈥檚 sake.鈥�

The Mexican government, which interviews returning citizens at the border, has not seen evidence that 300,000 people moved back between 2016 and 2017, said Carlos Hernandez, a statistical technician at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, Mexico. It鈥檚 possible that, because of backlogs in US immigration courts, some have been arrested but not yet deported, he said. 鈥淚f thousands of migrants are detained, but they have not been deported, that could explain the reduction,鈥� Mr. Hernandez said.

Nationally, evidence shows that children of immigrants have faced growing hostility in US schools, and that may be driving some parents to move with their children to Mexico even if they鈥檙e not forced to do so by deportation or job loss in today鈥檚 immigration crackdowns, said Patricia G谩ndara, the co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and a professor at the university who studies education.

In a study to be published soon, Ms. G谩ndara and the Civil Rights Project surveyed schools in a dozen states and found the most hostility to immigrant children in the South. Southern states passed a wave of anti-immigration bills in the early 2010s that caused some Hispanic聽communities to pack up and leave.

鈥淥ur researcher heard literally thousands of stories about children crying in school or just not showing up,鈥� G谩ndara said. 鈥淭hey may be afraid to leave home, thinking their parents could be taken away.鈥�

Tens of thousands of American-born children are enrolling every year in Mexican public schools, G谩ndara said. And Mr. Selee said the number of American children living in Mexico likely has reached more than half a million.

鈥淭hese are our children,鈥� G谩ndara said. 鈥淭hey grew up here or were born here, and now they end up in Mexico, a place they may never have seen before. It might be voluntary or involuntary 鈥� there could be one deportation but the entire family follows because that鈥檚 their livelihood.鈥�

Arrests and deportations of unauthorized immigrants have increased under the Trump administration but are still down from the peak of crackdowns under the Obama administration, in part because of local sanctuary policies that have held down immigration arrests.

The Trump administration has reversed some Obama-era protections for those without criminal convictions and conducted high-profile raids and arrests intended to sow fear even in sanctuary cities.

At the same time, Mexico has boosted wages and agreed to let unions negotiate for workers in a bid to lure back former residents.

Western states such as California, a 鈥渟anctuary state,鈥� have broken new ground in protecting the undocumented as much as possible. But many immigrants thought they were targeted for extra harassment as 鈥減ayback鈥� for those policies through targeted raids and arrests, according to a working paper for the UCLA study.

Western farmers have long depended on immigrant labor, much of it from Mexico, said Cory Lunde, a director at the Western Growers Association, which represents farms in California, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. In recent years farmers have seen their workforce drop by 15 to 30 percent, Mr. Lunde said. Many growers are聽combatting labor shortages by increasing automation, he said.

Historically, the decrease does not approach the scale of two watershed mass deportation events that each returned as many as a million or more Mexican-Americans to Mexico: mass repatriations during the Depression in the 1930s, and the derogatorily named Operation Wetback program in the mid-1950s.

In Georgia, a state dependent on labor-intensive crops like Vidalia onions and blueberries that can鈥檛 be harvested by machine, farmworkers from Mexico migrate from Florida to pick onions in the spring and blueberries in the summer.

But because of two consecutive bad years for blueberries, many stopped聽coming, and that may have contributed to Georgia鈥檚 drop in Mexican immigrants, said Andy Lucas, a program specialist at the Georgia Farm Bureau. There were scattered reports of labor shortages this spring as onions were being picked, he said.

Georgia farmers know how much they need immigrant labor, Mr. Lucas said.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of loyalty and trust in this business,鈥� Lucas said. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 go out and plant a blueberry bush or put an onion in the ground without knowing where the workers are going to聽come from 鈥� you鈥檇 be foolish.鈥�

The largest drops in the Mexican-born population were in cities and suburbs, though rural areas also were affected. The Migration Policy Institute鈥檚 Selee said Los Angeles, Dallas, and Houston had the largest drops among cities.

Mexican immigrants remain by far the largest immigrant group in the nation at 11.3 million, with immigrants from China a distant second at 2.8 million and India third at 2.6 million.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a significant drop, but it is still the largest immigrant group,鈥� Selee said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 still a quarter of the immigrant population, down from a third a decade ago, but it鈥檚 a very significant group. And if you count second-, third- and fourth-generation Mexican-Americans, it鈥檚 huge.鈥�

This story was reported by Stateline.